Resonance, intimate intelligence, defining progress

This is a low stakes beginning. I’m exploring — out of curiosity, not pressure — a regular writing practice. I’m putting this out in the world, on some reasonable cadence, purely for the sake of accountability. There is no thesis, no grand ambition, and likely no audience beyond, maybe, a few remarkably patient family members. The revisions and edits will be minimal, and the time will be more than well bound. Consider this a sporadic musing of interests.

I admire writers. This is likely underpinned by envy for those I believe to possess more intellectual and emotional depth — and, therefore, seem to be living more resonant and vibrant lives. This is a little silly at best, embarrassingly naive at worst. But its from this admiration that I’ve been plagued by a nagging desire to write more. And in our hyper-stimulated world of constant information (every smartphone contains more information than the ancient Library of Alexandria), it can be difficult to pause and reflect. While it’d be futile to try and stop the bombardment, I’m at least trying to savor a few things along the way. And writing can be a means to do just that — as Steve Almond says about good nonfiction narration: it “plucks meaning from the rush of experience”.

I’ve always found writing to be immensely difficult and I don’t pretend to be particularly good at it. There’s that consoling joke that most writers hating writing, but love having written (unless you’re David Remnick, apparently). Since my early 20s I’ve journaled regularly, and while those writings feel important — I’d most definitely be grabbing that box of journals in an emergency evacuation — the content is often, by nature, rather naval-gazey. It’s also comically repetitive (the well worn groves of neuroses). So, for this outlet I’m interested in breaking out of diaristic writing habits, opening the doors and windows, letting some air in. This will be a space to consistently reflect on the ideas and expressions of others, from someone whose convictions are rather limited and often in flux. I’ll take the liberty to frame this as a virtue and take solace in that famous Rilke quote, that one about living the questions.

Resonance

I recently went to the SF Moma as part of a team activity during an onsite. It was a small group of us, so we moved together, observing almost every exhibit across the six floors. There was something surprising, striking, positively strange about looking at art with coworkers. I think it was this unique sense of having a shared direction of focused attention in a physical space. Even though we all work together, our environment is often filled with the hum of emails, pings, news alerts, to-dos — the minutiae of work that’s always somewhat occupying our minds. But two hours staring at art shifted our dynamic. At the risk of sounding a little woo-woo, everything felt more visceral, immediate, corporeal even, in a good way. There was a pulling back of the curtain, seeing each other as complex humans outside of the confined perspectives of work. This experience made me think of the notion of “resonance”, which was described by the German social theorist Hartmut Rosa as “the vibrancy that makes life worth living”. I came across this definition in the book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, which explores the concerning ways the habits of modern life can sap us of this important feeling.

I’m using the term “resonance” having discussed the work of Hartmut Rosa. It’s this idea that there is something that the modern world lacks because of our attempts, as societies and individuals, to extend more and more control over the world. Something about that squeezes out a sense of aliveness.

As I write this, I’m coming off a day where I probably spent too much time reading the news, and I began to notice a creeping dissociation — my brain floating away from my body, unmoored from my actual life. Stimulated, yet dull. I could use some moments of resonance.

Intimate intelligence

There are more than enough think pieces on Artificial Intelligence. We’re overloaded with prognostications about the future impacts of this technological shift. Many of these are brilliant analyses, but they’re written by normal, inevitably flawed humans who ultimately don’t know what’s going to happen despite their confident posturing. As Montaigne said: “even on the highest throne in the world, we are seated still upon our arses”.

That said, I still want to fool myself into thinking that I’ll have a sense of what’s going to happen. So I’ve been reading Yuval Noah Harari’s recent book Nexus. It’s been insightful and, like most of his books, helpful in providing context. I’m constantly jotting down notes that I may or may not go back to (yes, I want to feel like a good student). One of the recent concepts that’s got me thinking is the possible paradigm shift from attention to intimacy.

The early 21st century technological wave can be considered a battle for eye balls. Get user, keep users engaged, monetize through advertising. But with AI’s increasing human-like language capabilities that are highly convincing, we’re seeing the “battle lines are now shifting from attention to intimacy”. While I try not to judge, this seems like…..not the best idea. Especially given how fast this technology is evolving, I’m concerned about our emotional, cultural, and dare I say spiritual lives short circuiting in the speed of it all. And if there are significant profit incentives for establishing AI-to-human intimacy, well, shit. Human relationships are messy and hard, but it’s that friction that gives them meaning — loving each other amidst our flaws and complexities.

Defining progress

I’ve been dipping my toes into learning more about the “progress studies” movement. I’m somewhat late to the game here: there was an Atlantic article written in 2019 by Patrick Collison (founder of Stripe) and Tyler Cowen (notable economist) that apparently kicked it all off. The general idea is that we’ve seen remarkable progress in standards of living and quality of life over the past couple of centuries due to a combination of “economic, technological, scientific, cultural, and organizational advancement”. But now progress has been stalled, and it’s not entirely clear why. The purveyors of this intellectual movement are challenging society to better understand what’s blocking this advancement and find out ways we can re-catalyze progress for the betterment of society.

I’m somewhat skeptical of the ways “progress” can be co-opted by those with immense wealth to make the case for an extreme unbridled, form of capitalism. And the obvious question is who has the power to define what “progress” means.

But I understand how there’s also something attractive about the politics progress: it’s much easier to get people excited about advancing solutions over making sacrifices. It can often seem like this is the spectrum is the crux of political debates: Carrot vs. Stick, Incentive vs. Regulation, Accelerationist vs. Degrowth.

There’s a general sense that many people have lost hope in the belief that things can get better. Our collective aspirations have, for many valid reasons, taken a hit. It would be nice to feel at least a slight uptick of excitement about future possibilities. I believe this is somewhat the topic of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson new book Abundance.

A parting quote of the week

The moment we become fixated on the storylines in our mind, we exclude the rest of the world from our lives.

A closing song

Wasted On You by Andy Shauf - this has been on repeat with Nina and Caitlin, something about the tone of it all has been making us feel good.

I should add that highly important topics — particularly the current terrifying political crisis we find ourselves in — will not get tons of exposure here. It’s not that I don’t think about them (the fear is intense and ever-present), there’s just more than enough being said by far smarter and more intelligent people. Do what you can to not be paralyzed by despair, call your representatives, get civically involved for causes that matter you, and please keep putting your goodness, humanity, and decency out in the world.